The off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz method [1] is used to revisit the periodic XXX Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain. It is found that the spectrum of the transfer matrix can be characterized by an inhomogeneous T-Q relation, a natural but nontrivial extension of Baxter's T-Q relation [2].
With the XXZ spin chains as examples, we prove two theorems: (1) the functional relations derived from the off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz scheme are the sufficient and necessary conditions to characterize the complete spectrum of the corresponding transfer matrix; (2) each eigenvalue of the transfer matrix can be parameterized by a minimal inhomogeneous T – Q relation. These statements hold for both with and without inhomogeneity. The proof can be generalized to other finite-dimensional quantum integrable models.
Off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz solution of the τ2-model
The generic quantum τ2-model (also known as Baxter-Bazhanov-Stroganov (BBS) model) with periodic boundary condition is studied via the off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz method. The eigenvalues of the corresponding transfer matrix (solutions of the recursive functional relations in τj-hierarchy) with generic site-dependent inhomogeneity parameters are given in terms of an inhomogeneous T-Q relation with polynomial Q-functions. The associated Bethe Ansatz equations are obtained. Numerical solutions of the Bethe Ansatz equations for small number of sites indicate that the inhomogeneous T-Q relation does indeed give the complete spectrum.
The generic quantum τ 2-model (also known as Baxter-Bazhanov-Stroganov (BBS) model) with periodic boundary condition is studied via the off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz method. The eigenvalues of the corresponding transfer matrix (solutions of the recursive functional relations in τ j -hierarchy) with generic site-dependent inhomogeneity parameters are given in terms of an inhomogeneous T − Q relation with polynomial Q-functions. The associated Bethe Ansatz equations are obtained. Numerical solutions of the Bethe Ansatz equations for small number of sites indicate that the inhomogeneous T − Q relation does indeed give the complete spectrum.
The off-diagonal Bethe ansatz method is generalized to the high spin integrable systems associated with the su(2) algebra by employing the spin-s isotropic Heisenberg chain model with generic integrable boundaries as an example. With the fusion techniques, certain closed operator identities for constructing the functional T − Q relations and the Bethe ansatz equations are derived. It is found that a variety of inhomogeneous T − Q relations obeying the operator product identities can be constructed. Numerical results for two-site s = 1 case indicate that an arbitrary choice of the derived T − Q relations is enough to give the complete spectrum of the transfer matrix.
The so(5) (i.e., B2) quantum integrable spin chains with both periodic and non-diagonal boundaries are studied via the off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz method. By using the fusion technique, sufficient operator product identities (comparing to those in [1]) to determine the spectrum of the transfer matrices are derived. For the periodic case, we recover the results obtained in [1], while for the non-diagonal boundary case, a new inhomogeneous T−Q relation is constructed. The present method can be directly generalized to deal with the so(2n+1) (i.e., Bn) quantum integrable spin chains with general boundaries.
Based on the inhomogeneous T–Q relation constructed via the off-diagonal Bethe Ansatz, a systematic method for retrieving the Bethe-type eigenstates of integrable models without obvious reference state is developed by employing certain orthogonal basis of the Hilbert space. With the XXZ spin torus model and the open XXX spin- chain as examples, we show that for a given inhomogeneous T–Q relation and the associated Bethe Ansatz equations, the constructed Bethe-type eigenstate has a well-defined homogeneous limit.